Matthew Lynn is a financial columnist and author of ‘Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis’ and ‘The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031’
The City was meant to be hollowed out. Shortages would cripple the economy. And major multinationals would move their headquarters, listings, and all the wealth those create, to somewhere safely inside the EU’s Single Market. Some hardcore supporters of the UK remaining inside the EU made lots of predictions about the consequences of the decision
Francois Hollande could hardly have been clearer in his intentions. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 vote that took the UK out of the European Union, the French president was adamant that the City of London would have to lose one of its most important strategic assets, the right to clear trades denominated in euros.
Supermarket shelves are bare. There may not be enough turkeys for Christmas. Wages and prices are rising. And the government is sinking into a pit of sleaze. As if that were not enough, the EU is about to launch a full-scale trade war against the country. Following the day-to-day news, you could well be forgiven
He isn’t Canadian. He doesn’t dominate the Davos circuit with platitudes about climate change. And he isn’t constantly warning that the British economy will turn into a cross between Ethiopia and Argentina now that we have left the European Union. In many ways, the current Governor of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey is an
The amount the state takes out of the economy will rise to the highest level in 70 years. An unreformed public sector will be showered with cash, with the health service allowed to spend whatever it likes. A tax system that was already creaking under the weight of its own complexity has just been made
13 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll hear Matthew Lynn’s thoughts on how the gas shortages could lead to a very cold winter. (00:51) Then, Tanya Gold with a critical take on critics. (04:41) And finally, James Innes-Smith bigs up the bungalow. (08:58) Presented by Sam Holmes
The stove won’t light. The boiler won’t fire up. Pipes are frozen and the water has stopped running. Welcome to Christmas 2021. Amid a fierce cold snap, with another ‘Beast from the East’ blasting across the country, the UK’s meagre stockpiles of gas have been exhausted and the country is plunged into a crisis. Old
Concorde obviously. The Iraq War perhaps? Or Scottish devolution? It is not hard to come up with a list of really terrible ideas that the British government has wasted money on over the last 50 years. Even so, and despite some tough competition, we now have a fresh contender. It looks as if the furlough
The bald guy who leads the Social Democrats. The earnest looking Green lady. Or perhaps the guy in the charcoal-grey suit who leads the oddly named Free Democrats — free from what exactly? — who may end up picking the next chancellor. Lots of commentators will argue for a long time about who is the
Ursula von der Leyen has demanded a full investigation. EU officials are considering pulling out of technology talks with the US. And negotiations over a trade deal with Australia have been put in doubt. Over the last 24 hours, the full might of the European Union has been deployed on the side of France in
45 min listen
In this week’s episode: is Brexit to blame for the rise in blue-collar wages? With labour shortages driving wages up, many have blamed Britain’s removal from the single market. However, this week in The Spectator, Matthew Lynn argues that shocks and price signals are how the free-market economy reorganises, and that we are experiencing a global
During the Brexit referendum, Stuart Rose, the former boss of Marks & Spencer, and chair of the Remain campaign, claimed that if Britain left the EU, wages ‘will go up’. This was, he added, in a rare moment of candour, ‘not necessarily a good thing’. But the idea that salaries might rise was exactly the
We are in the middle of a once-in-a-generation shift: working from home. There are skill shortages across the economy, supply bottlenecks, and empty supermarket shelves. A couple of million people are still set to come off furlough, back into jobs that may no longer exist. The labour market is in utter chaos. But, hey, here’s a good
Car workers in Sunderland are doing just fine. Construction workers still have jobs. And the food is still getting to the supermarkets, even if there are some occasional disruptions to supply. Not many of the dire warnings about the consequences of leaving the European Union have actually come to pass. There is, however, one group
An arrogant, aloof, wordy, pro-EU centrist drawn from the same narrow elite that has dominated the country for decades. It’s not that hard to see how French voters might choose to replace Emmanuel Macron with Michel Barnier. Apart from the fact he is older, his hair is greyer, and his wife is slightly younger, it is
The City has resigned itself to being locked out of the EU. The hauliers are adjusting to all the extra paperwork. Now it looks as if the lawyers will have to get used to no deal as well — and while that won’t do any serious long term damage to the profession’s booming global status,
The debacle in Iraq. The fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. The failed ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion of Cuba. You can debate where exactly the collapse of Afghanistan ranks in the list of American military and foreign policy disasters. But one point is surely certain. It is a major setback, and
19 min listen
On this week’s episode, Jonathan Miller, author of France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown talks about the French ‘vaccine passport’ protests; Financial columnist Matthew Lynn reflects on 50 years without the gold standard; and Melissa Kite tells us about her own ways of treating Covid.
The dotcom bubble. The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The oil price spiral of the 1970s. The launch of the single currency. It would be fun, in a nerdish kind of a way, to debate which was the most seismic economic event of postwar history. But in fact the answer would be this: the
Tapping out some code in the back garden. Working on a sales presentation while watching the school sports day. Or even better, traveling though a continent or two while still pulling down a ritzy six figure salary. Over the last year, middle class professionals have bought into the Work From Home Dream – or WFHD
